


Springs Eternal

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Elvhen Ascension [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Diary/Journal, History, M/M, Power Dynamics, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Lavellan finds the journal of the Hero of Fereldan in the Grey Warden stores.





	Springs Eternal

_ The Legion of the Dead _ _: a dwarven organisation of warriors who leave Orzammar in order to fight back the darkspawn on the Deep Roads. They ensure that the darkspawn don’t reach Orzammar proper or hit any of the major through-routes, and they do their best to keep the darkspawn populations from creeping too high._

_Before they leave, they hold a funeral. All their loved ones gather to bid them farewell, and they’re treated as dead from then on._

_I didn’t know I could ever envy dead men so much_.

“What’cha doing?” came a low voice from behind the Inquisitor, but Lavellan didn’t flinch. He turned his head, just slightly, and he looked up to meet Bull’s gaze, but Bull didn’t look back at him yet: instead, his gaze was travelling around the library, taking in the dusty surfaces and crammed-full shelves, down here in the vaults. “This the library you said you were cleaning up?”

“It was much worse before,” Lavellan said, leaning back in his seat. “I’ve managed to clear out the majority of the cobweb and the grime, but I still need to go through the books, clear them each… Leliana’s new librarian, Anaeris, he and some of the mages will be helping me, but in the meantime, I was distracted.”

“People have been looking for you,” Bull said, sliding his hand over his shoulder.

“Yes, I know,” Lavellan said. “I’ve been avoiding them. It’s nothing important, just pilgrims seeking my blessing.”

“What’s in the book?”

“They’re diaries,” Lavellan said. “Of— Her name was Lyna Mahariel, but people don’t often say her name. The Hero of Ferelden. I didn’t realize she kept diaries, but—”

“Looks like yours,” Bull said. Lavellan’s fingers lingered on the page he’d had open, the printed definitions in a much messier hand than his own, a spidery sketching on the page: perfectly legible, but irregular, and often hurried. Like Lavellan’s codices, letters and notes were pinned to various pages, or short extracts of useful text were copied out and pinned between them. The effect was a leather bound book stuffed with twice the pages it had been made with, and there were two of them, full to the brim.

“I thought that,” Lavellan admitted. “She… The Grey Wardens, according to this, their induction to the order is a death sentence. That which allows them to resist the Blight will ultimately be their destruction – when Grey Warden reach the end of their time, they begin to hear the call of the Archdemon anew, and retreat into the Deep Roads to die fighting what darkspawn they might, before madness takes them entirely. But she didn’t know it would kill her, when she first… She didn’t know.”

Lavellan exhaled, turning the page.

“_I don’t think I’ll ever see my clan again,”_ he read aloud. “_And I cannot help but stay awake at nights, sometimes, thinking about them – about Keeper Marethari, about Ilen and Paivel, about Pol, even about poor young Merrill, the Keeper’s second. I always thought… I always hoped I would be able to go back, one day, return to that life, and now I realize I won’t ever be able to. Even if I left the Grey Wardens today, abandoned my duty, the Blight would take me._

_And I couldn’t do that._

_Zevran is sleeping beside me as I write this, his breaths even and slow. I don’t know if he reads my journals – he has told me he doesn’t, but I wouldn’t judge him if he did. It’s cruel of me to write it down, if he does, so please, Zevran, if you do, skip this next page, don’t torture yourself.”_

Lavellan turned the page again. The sound of it seemed to echo in the quiet room, impossibly loud.

_“I know it’s foolish of me, sentimental, but I wanted to see Antiva someday. I never dreamed of life beyond the clan, not really, until I met Zevran, and now I ache to see it all – I wish I could see the Antiva City that made Zevran, and see Orlais, see the Val Royeaux Leliana talks of so often, and even see Seheron…_

_Sten isn’t one for poetry, but he told me, once, about Alam, a settlement there, and how in the morning the sun glints through the humid jungle air, and leaves a rainbow shine around everything it touches._

_I never wanted much, before I left the clan, and yet now it seems to me I want everything, and every book we come across I scour hungrily for descriptions, for sketches, of places I know I’ll never make it to. And it isn’t just places, either, it’s people, I wish…_

_I never dreamed of getting married before—”_

“Stop,” Iron Bull said, when he heard the crack in Lavellan’s voice, and Lavellan bowed his head, knotting his fingers in his hair.

“She was twenty-two years old when she died,” Lavellan said. “Can you imagine? _Twenty-two_, she was barely…”

“Why are you reading this?” Iron Bull asked, replacing Lavellan’s hand with his own and carding through his hair, pulling him to look up at Bull. The firm grip and sudden shift didn’t make Lavellan gasp like he usually did, but nor did he relax as was his usual: he was all but limp as he fell against Bull’s chest, and Bull didn’t relax his grip. “What, you just wanna beat yourself up over a Dalish who died in the Blight?”

“There’s useful things in the diary,” Lavellan said quietly, wiping his eye. “Information about… the Grey Wardens, Fereldan, but about the teyrns, certain elements of interconnection, I… Do you think I’m being foolish? Self-flagellating through cultural connection?”

“Self-flagellating?” Iron Bull repeated, stroking his thumb over Lavellan’s cheek. “What, you blaming yourself for this? How old were you when this girl died?”

“No, I’m not blaming myself,” Lavellan said. “Just that… I can’t help but feel as she feels. What she describes – feeling as if there’s too much on her shoulders, worrying that she’s an insufficient leader, her roots ever cast aside even by her friends… A party made up of elves, mages, a dwarf, even a Qunari.”

Lavellan leaned against the Bull’s chest, and Bull pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around the elf and pulling him up by his thighs, so that his legs wrapped around Bull’s waist. Bull didn’t let him go, his grip tight on him. It wasn’t easy, sometimes. Seeing Lavellan’s face like this, his eyes a little wet, his expression downcast. “Where’d you get the diary?”

“Valeska Keep. I was going to give them to Leliana, once I read them. She knew Mahariel well, she… They were good friends. Morrigan, too, she was…” Lavellan murmured, and reached back, pushing the diary closed. “I read the last page.”

“The last entry?”

“Said she hoped whoever had the diary would find use in it. There were tear stains on the page, and a page ripped out – that was the letter she wrote to Zevran Arainai, I think. They were lovers ever since he tried to kill her.”

“True love, I guess,” Bull murmured, setting the elf down. “You look fucked.”

“I feel fucked,” Lavellan said. “By everything, everyone, from all directions.”

“So much for monogamy.”

“You’re trying to make me laugh.”

“But you’re not laughing,” Iron Bull said. “What do I gotta say? Please?”

“I want to give these books to Leliana,” Lavellan said, gently taking them up. “And then, I…” He turned his head, looking up at Bull. “Do I ask for too much sex?” It would have made Iron Bull laugh, if it weren’t for his expression, genuine and full to the brim with uncertainty.

“No, kadan,” Bull murmured. “Why, were you about to ask?”

“Something rough,” Lavellan said. “If you’re amenable.”

“I’m amenable,” Bull said quietly. “But I don’t know if it’d be better to go for a walk. Stick that peachy elven ass of yours in that hot spring outside of the fortress and dig my fingers into your muscles ‘til they’re smooth as butter.”

Lavellan was quiet, thoughtful. He nodded, then.

The Iron Bull wished every problem could be solved so simply.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq).


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